A Phenomenological Reading of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā

Abstract

In this article, I expand on the approach suggested by Huifeng and explored in my earlier publications. Here, I approach Prajñāpāramitā as primarily concerned with experience rather than reality or metaphysics. More precisely, I argue that Prajñāpāramitā is concerned with the absence of experience in deep meditative states. I explore the idea of “phenomenological” reading and note how it differs from the hegemonic metaphysical readings in a general way. The resulting heuristic is then applied to reading passages from the opening of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā, some of which are apparently paradoxical. At the very least, I show that we are not forced to read these parts of the text as addressing metaphysical issues. I also try to show that the phenomenological reading is superior, since it can be directly connected to standard Buddhist soteriological concerns, avoids paradoxes, and leaves logic intact.

1. Introduction

In 2014, Matthew Orsborn (writing as Huifeng) made an observation that has proved to be a major turning point for understanding the Heart Sutra. It had long been thought that the Chinese expression yǐwúsuǒdégù 以無所得故 meaning “because of the state of nonattainment”, was a translation of aprāptitvāt, since this is the term that appears in the Sanskrit Heart Sutra texts. However, Orsborn showed that Kumārajīva’s translation team coined the term yǐwúsuǒdégù 以無所得故 specifically to translate anupalambhayogena “by practising nonapprehension” in the Móhē bānrě bōluómì jīng «摩訶般若波羅蜜經» (T 223; hereafter Móhē), his translation of (what we now call) the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā (Pañc).

This discrepancy must be understood in the light of Nattier’s (1992) conjecture that the central portion of the Sanskrit Heart Sutra, which she called the “core section”, was copied from Móhē and back-translated from Chinese. Orsborn (Huifeng 2014) provided independent confirmation of this conjecture. Since then, numerous articles, summed up in Attwood (2021), have confirmed Nattier’s conclusions.1 The Heart Sutra was composed in Chinese, ca 654–656 CE, and the Sanskrit version was produced later, in China.

This suggests that aprāptitvāt was an incorrect back translation of yǐwúsuǒdégù 以無所得故, and that anupalambhayogena was intended. In Attwood (2020b, pp. 22–23), I showed that Orsborn’s suggested reading of yǐwúsuǒdégù 以無所得故 in the Heart Sutra exactly matches how it is used in (Pañc). For example, the Dhāraṇī Saṃbhāraḥ chapter asks, “What is Mahāyāna?” The answer is that any mainstream Buddhist practice can be a Mahāyāna practice, anupalambhayogena “through the application of nonapprehension”. Huifeng (2014, p. 103) incidentally noted that:

It is our view that this shifts emphasis from an ontological negation of classical lists, i.e., “there is no X”, to an epistemological stance. That is, when the Bodhisattva is “in emptiness”, i.e., in the contemplative meditation of the emptiness of phenomena, he is “engaged in nonapprehension” of these phenomena (emphasis added).

Subsequently, in Attwood (2022), I expanded on the idea of an “epistemological stance” using Hamilton’s (2000) epistemic readings of Pāli suttas as a model. Part of my (Attwood 2022, pp. 121–26) argument about this approach—drawing on Pāli texts such as the Rohitassa Sutta (SN 2.25) and the Loka Sutta (SN 12.44)—is that the focus in Prajñāpāramitā is not so much on “the world of experience” per se, as it is on the end of that world (loko anto). The end of the world is not achieved in any physical sense, but precisely through bringing sensory experience to a halt. It is worth emphasising that, in this context, mental activity is also a sensory experience.

In this article, I will extend the Hamiltonian approach and show how it can be applied to the fountainhead of Prajñāpāramitā, the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā (Aṣṭa).

In general, we may say that a phenomenological reading is concerned with phenomena, where “a phenomenon” is precisely something that we can experience. This is contrasted with the idea of “the thing itself” or noumenon, which may be inferred to underpin experience, but which cannot itself be experienced. I see nothing in Buddhist texts that rules out an objective reality. Indeed, the early Buddhist approach to objects seems to be a form of naïve realism, in the sense that characters in the stories treat objects as objectively real without ever questioning the assumptions involved. Unlike their European contemporaries, early Buddhists were simply not interested in reality or questions about reality. As Bodhi (2000, p. 394, n. 182) has asserted:

The world with which the Buddha’s teaching is principally concerned is ‘the world of experience,’ and even the objective world is of interest only to the extent that it serves as that necessary external condition for experience.

In early Buddhist texts, metaphysical questions of the type “Does X exist?” are very often set aside as avyākṛta “unanswerable” (an example of this in Aṣṭa is discussed below). Objects are relatively inconsequential compared to sensory experience, and in particular to the cessation of experience and the subsequent state in which it is absent. The latter is the key to Buddhist soteriology. The essential contrast in early Buddhist literature is not between “good” and “bad” experiences but between the presence of experience (saṃsāra) and its absence (nirvāṇa).

This approach is not directly inspired by the European traditions of phenomenology (as defined by Woodruff Smith 2013, for example). We can say, for example, that one of the fundamental assumptions of European phenomenology is that sensory experiences are “intentional”:

The structure of these forms of experience typically involves what Husserl called “intentionality”, that is, the directedness of experience toward things in the world, the property of consciousness that it is a consciousness of or about something.

(Woodruff Smith 2013)

In Prajñāpāramitā, by contrast, we are principally concerned with a state that is only nominally a state of “consciousness”, precisely because it is not intentional.2

Nor is this approach an extension of later Buddhist approaches that have been described by modern scholars as “phenomenological”, such as we find in the various Abhidharma or Yogācāra traditions. Cataloguing and classifying phenomena is certainly something that Buddhists engaged in. However, as stated, the focus here is precisely on the absence of phenomena. One of the points that the Aṣṭa appears to make is that there can be no ontology of absence. We might add that the Aṣṭa insists that if any phenomenon is present, that is not śūnyatā.

In this view, then, Prajñāpāramitā is primarily concerned with the mental state in which all intentional experience has ceased through the systematic withdrawal of attention from sensory experience; that is to say, a state in which there are no phenomena. So while I use the adjective “phenomenological”, I use it descriptively, not as a gesture to the branch of modern philosophy known as Phenomenology. No comparison with existing phenomenologies—qua describing and categorising phenomena—is intended or implied (and arguably none is possible).

The orthodox (i.e., Conzean) Buddhist Studies view of Prajñāpāramitā is that it has to be a reaction against something. Some scholars, notably Conze (1958), proposed that Prajñāpāramitā was a reaction against Sarvāstivāda doctrine, but this view was debunked by Onishi (1999). Others have proposed that it was a reaction against Abhidharma.3 The “reaction” hypotheses appear to reflect a persistence of the orientalist view that treats Mahāyāna as analogous to Protestantism: a reaction against orthodoxy. However, Aṣṭa is not obviously reactive in that way, and as I show below, it is perfectly comprehensible without any reference to Sarvāstivāda or Abhidharma. Indeed, I read Aṣṭa as largely restating ideas already found in early Buddhist sutras—especially texts like the Cūḷasuññata Sutta (MN 121)—rather than rejecting Abhidharma ideas. Given my reading of Aṣṭa below, I now lean towards treating Prajñāpāramitā as considerably more conservative than Abhidharma.

We also have to be wary of what Matthew Orsborn (writing as Huifeng 2016b) called the “Madhyamaka telos”, i.e., the anachronistic idea that Prajñāpāramitā is best approached through the lens of Madhyamaka.4 Following Orsborn, I see a profound disjuncture between Prajñāpāramitā and Madhyamaka. On the other hand, like Orsborn (Huifeng 2016b) and Anālayo (2025), I see a great deal more continuity between the Prajñāpāramitā literature and the early Buddhist sutra literature than is allowed in the hegemonic Conzean view. As such, I see early Buddhist sutras as providing a more relevant intellectual context than the later Mahāyāna synthesis, which was not visible in Indian Buddhism when Aṣṭa was composed in the first century CE (Attwood 2022).

After a long preamble, which sets out a minimal theoretical underpinning for this approach, I present a reading of some passages from the opening of Chapter One of Aṣṭa, which is generally agreed to reflect the acme of Prajñāpāramitā thought and is possibly the oldest part of the text.5 Before diving into a phenomenological reading, however, we need to create some intellectual space for it. This means offering a critique of the existing paradigm, which treats Prajñāpāramitā as being concerned with metaphysics, specifically with a transcendental reality, inaccessible to the senses, in which contradictions are magically resolved. We also need to try to understand how a phenomenological reading works in practice.

2. Contradictions

The idea that Prajñāpāramitā uses logical contradictions and paradoxes to communicate its message is a well-established trope. Although partly traditional,6 this approach to Prajñāpāramitā was first popularised in English by D. T. Suzuki and Edward Conze. Conze (1958, p. 84), echoing Suzuki, epitomised this approach in his Heart Sutra commentary:

In logical parlance, “A is what A is not”, or “what A is not, that is A.” Such propositions obviously violate the logical principle of [non]contradiction. For to identify a term with its negation is to state a contradiction. The identity of Yes and No is the secret of emptiness.

In this paradoxical view, for any given logical proposition, the contrary is also true, and Aristotle’s laws of logic,7 especially the law of noncontradiction, are supposedly dispensed with. On Suzuki and his influences, David L. McMahan says,

“In his discussion of humanity and nature, Suzuki takes Zen literature out of its social, ritual, and ethical contexts and reframes it in terms of a language of metaphysics derived from German Romantic idealism, English Romanticism, and American Transcendentalism”.

(McMahan 2008, p. 125)

Suzuki was also profoundly influenced by studying and translating works of the Swedish theologian and occultist, Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1776).8 In the foreword to the English translation of Suzuki’s biography of Swedenborg, the translator comments:

It seems to me that Suzuki was able to translate Zen Buddhism into English with such insight and clarity because Suzuki’s brain had previously been trained by Swedenborg’s mysticism in his younger years.

(Nagashima 1996, p. xi)

Suzuki was also influenced by the mysticism of Theosophy. With his American wife, Beatrice Lane Suzuki, he was a leading member of the Japanese Theosophical movement.

D. T. Suzuki interpreted Prajñāpāramitā largely in terms of a mixture of European modernism and pre-modern European mysticism. Given his well-known privileging of Japanese culture—particularly his idolisation of the Zen monk and his close connections with Japanese nationalists—this combination is itself paradoxical. Suzuki sets the stage for Edward Conze to emerge as the leading European scholar of Prajñāpāramitā.

The central topic of Conze’s (1932) Habilitationsschrift—equivalent to a modern PhD dissertation—was an argument against Aristotle’s principles of logic based on Marx’s dialectical materialism. Conze later abandoned Marxism but continued to affirm his conclusions regarding logic. Conze’s (1934, 1935, 1937) oeuvre after arriving in England in 1933 shows him firmly committed to repudiating Aristotelian logic years before he learned Sanskrit and encountered Prajñāpāramitā.

Conze’s (1953) “Ontology of Prajñāpāramitā” is a masterclass in what goes wrong when we repudiate the laws of logic. It is entirely composed of self-contradiction, obfuscation, circumlocution, and hand-waving that has little connection to Prajñāpāramitā (or Buddhism, for that matter). Ironically, Conze constantly relies on Aristotle’s logic to make his points against logic. For example: “Here, conversely, the insight into the oneness of all is the great goal, and only by contradictions can it be attained” (Conze 1958, p. 84). If the principle of noncontradiction is repudiated—as Conze asserts it must be—then we may say, with equal force, that the “great goal” is not “insight into the oneness of all”, and that goal can never be attained by contradiction.

While we can no more prove the principle of noncontradiction from first principles than Aristotle could, it is trivial to show that if A is not-A, as Conze insists, then it is impossible to obtain valid knowledge of anything since, in this view, all true propositions are false and vice versa. Conze can tolerate this trivialism because of his belief that beyond the ordinary, banal world of logic lies an extraordinary, explicitly magical world in which “all is one”.9 Echoing Plotinus, the Perennial Philosophy, and Madam Blavatsky, Conze sometimes refers to this other world as “the Absolute”. “The Absolute” is an elite world in which Conze felt he was (or ought to be) master.10 However, there is and can be no “Absolute” in a Buddhist context because that would be an eternalist view (śāśvatadṛṣṭi).

Recently, serious doubts have been raised about the presence of contradiction and paradox in Prajñāpāramitā, let alone the role it plays in the worldview of the authors of that literature. Notably, both Suzuki and Conze relied heavily on apparent contradictions in the Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā (Vaj). Harrison (2006) has shown that the pair misread compounds in the apparently contradictory phrases of Vaj and that the correct reading opened up a non-contradictory, nominalist interpretation of the statements in question. As Huifeng (2016a) points out in his discussion of contradiction in Aṣṭa, the “contradictions” here take the form XY is not Y, where XY is a bahuvrīhi compound,11 and only Y is negated. Rather than equating two contradictory statements, Vaj is critiquing the reification of abstractions. The argument is that just because we can categorise and put names to experiences, it does not make abstractions based on such operations real. Abstractions are ideas that we have about experience, rather than objects in their own right, and ideas are conditioned phenomena. Huifeng (2016a) discusses this kind of contradiction in Aṣṭa and comes to the same conclusion as Harrison.12 Neither Aṣṭa nor Vaj ever simply says “A is not A”. Nor do they make use of contradiction in the way that Suzuki and Conze assert.

Another source of confusion about Prajñāpāramitā is treating it as a mere prolegomenon to Madhyamaka rather than a distinct approach. Huifeng (2016b, pp. 8–28) calls this the “Text-historical telos of the [śūnyatā] narrative”. In this view, Prajñāpāramitā is viewed through the distorting lens of Madhyamaka metaphysics, thereby creating a Whiggish history of Prajñāpāramitā.

“This direction in which the narrative [of śūnyatā] is constructed, i.e., from the later period of Madhyamaka to work backwards in time to early Buddhism, reflects a kind of a priori goal to history, as though the earlier historical period [was] destined to lead to the telos of Nāgārjunian thought”.

(Huifeng 2016b, p. 8)

Approaches that combine mysticism (entailing a rejection of logic) and the Madhyamaka telos dominate modern scholarship on the Prajñāpāramitā literature. One result is that, despite acknowledging the overwhelming importance of Prajñāpāramitā literature in the post-canonical development of Buddhism, Prajñāpāramitā studies are largely moribund in universities. At the same time, Madhyamaka is more popular than ever.

It is telling that, almost a century after Conze began to publish his ideas about Prajñāpāramitā, we still don’t have reliable (let alone critical) editions of most Sanskrit Prajñāpāramitā texts, let alone reliable translations or studies.13 Conze’s overt magical thinking was never questioned in his lifetime. In recent years, critical engagement with Conze has been muted. By contrast, my article (Attwood 2020a) calls for a reassessment of his contributions (and his character). However, author and journalist Arthur Koestler (1905–1983) did raise questions about Suzuki:

There is one redeeming possibility: that all this drivel is deliberately intended to confuse the reader, since one of the avowed aims of Zen is to perplex and unhinge the rational mind. If this hypothesis were correct, Professor Suzuki’s voluminous oeuvre of at least a million words, specially written for this purpose, would represent a hoax of truly heroic dimensions, and the laugh would be on the Western intellectuals who fell for it.

(From the essay, “A Stink of Zen”, cited in Sharf 1993, p. 41).14

Anālayo’s (2025, pp. 36–62) discussion of what he calls the “Rhetoric of Emptiness” is cautiously supportive:

In sum, there do seem to be cogent reasons for going beyond the assumption of a hermeneutic of self-contradiction when reading the rhetoric of emptiness (40)

A few general studies of Prajñāpāramitā exist—such as Lancaster (1968), Mäll (2003), Fronsdal (2014), Walser (2018)—but these don’t present any significant challenge to orthodoxy that Prajñāpāramitā is focused on metaphysics and, to that end, is deliberately contradictory and paradoxical. The recent study by Anālayo (2025) is the first substantial commentary on Aṣṭa that takes a different approach:

The basic concerns underlying the rhetoric of emptiness in the Perfection of Wisdom are reflected in instances of deconstructing key terminology, including the very notion of a “bodhisatva”.

(Anālayo 2025, p. 63)

While I agree that nominalist critiques—against the reification of abstractions—are a feature of these texts, this characterisation sounds too much like a popular interpretation of Nāgārjuna’s views on emptiness. A curious lacuna in Anālayo’s study is the absence of any detailed discussion of what “emptiness” means. Even under the rubric of “The Rhetoric of Emptiness”, the term is not defined, and the standard translation is not problematised (compare Attwood 2024).

Matthew Orsborn’s Old School Emptiness (Huifeng 2016b) is still the most significant general work of scholarship on Prajñāpāramitā in the last century or so, precisely because Orsborn problematises this orthodoxy. It is regrettable that the book is difficult to obtain and that the existing edition lacks an index.

The main thesis of this essay is that the orthodox reading—entailing paradoxes, contradictions, and a magical transcendental reality in which they are resolved—is not the only possible reading. It is also possible to read the text phenomenologically, and this approach does not entail paradoxes or contradictions since it makes no metaphysical claims. I will further argue that a phenomenological reading has more explanatory power and is more plausible as an account of how the Buddhist authors of the Prajñāpāramitā might have thought. Before reading the text, we should try to further clarify what is meant by “a phenomenological reading” in this context.

3. How Do We Read Buddhist Texts Phenomenologically?

We have few major works of scholarship that interpret Buddhism as having a primary interest in phenomenological (or epistemic) issues. Hamilton (2000) was the first such to my knowledge, though it was not well received amongst Buddhist Studies academics.15 Griffiths’ (1986) book, On Being Mindless, examines some, mostly late, Buddhist scholastic traditions on cessation, but his approach is analytic rather than phenomenological.

On early Buddhist epistemology, per se, there are few major sources, and only Jayatilleke (1963) stands out. Most works on early Buddhist philosophy focus on ontologies and metaphysics, e.g., Ronkin (2005). Lusthaus (2002) is phenomenologically oriented but focuses on Yogācāra doctrine and the writings of Vasubandhu rather than on Buddhism more broadly.

Apart from Hamilton (2000), these sources all tend to assume the primacy of Buddhist metaphysics, so, for example, they assume that the knowledge gained through Buddhist practice is “knowledge of reality”. At best, we get brief glimpses of a nascent epistemic approach, in which sensory experience is the foreground. For example, Gethin’s (1986, p. 47) excellent summary of the khandha doctrine in Pāli notes, “at the most general level rūpa, vedanā, saññā, saṃkhāras and viññāṇa are presented as five aspects of an individual being’s experience of the world”. It is still far more common, for example, for the khandhas to be presented as a way of dividing up reality—i.e., as an ontology—than a way of dividing up knowledge or experience.

Perhaps the most distinctively Buddhist idea is dependent arising. This says that in the presence of the necessary condition, an effect necessarily manifests or, being manifest, it persists; and, in the absence of the condition, the effect cannot manifest or, being manifest, it must cease to be. Moreover, the effect is always appropriate to the condition and arises at the appropriate time. The primary focus of scholarship on this doctrine has been the idea of “things” arising, reflecting a European preoccupation with metaphysics.

The contrast between what is present (asuñña) in experience and what is absent (suñña) is crucial to some early texts, such as the Pāli Cūḷasuññata Sutta (MN 121), and to Prajñāpāramitā. A necessary condition for sensory experience is “attention” (manasikāra) to the senses. It is only when attention is present that we can have sensory experiences. The corollary of this is of the highest importance: when attention is absent (suñña; Skt. śūnya), then experience either ceases or does not arise. In stark contrast to most Buddhist texts on meditation, the Cūḷasuññata Sutta recommends the practice of “inattention” (amanasikāra) to sensory experience. This term parallels the Sanskrit term anupalambha “nonapprehension”.

To the best of my knowledge, no ancient Buddhists ever proposed that the absence of an experience from the sensorium meant that something did not exist. As Hamilton says

The point of commonality of the teachings is that they are all concerned with how something works: none of them is concerned with what something is, or, indeed, with what it is not.

(Hamilton 2000, pp. 21–22)

In Attwood (2022), I proposed a revised version of Hamilton’s epistemic account of the skandhas. In this view, rūpa is “appearance”, rather than “body” or “matter”. As I say (Attwood 2022), “Rūpa is to the eye as sound is to the ear.” In other words, rūpa is that which strikes the eye of the observer, causing a visual sensory experience. In modern terms, rūpa is the light emanating from or reflected by the object. Translating rūpa as “appearance” more accurately captures the pre-modern view of this process than “form”. Unfortunately, the vast majority of writers on Buddhism reify “form” (hence translations such as “body” or “matter”).

In this view, rūpa always means “appearance”, so that rūpa-skandha is a metonym in which “visual appearance” stands for the appearance of any sensory experience across the various senses.16 In other words, rūpaskandha stands for rūpamādi or rūpa, śabda, gandha, rasa, spraṣṭavya, and dharma collectively. Similarly, nāmarūpa may be understood as “name and appearance”: since we name experience based on how it appears to us. As far as I can tell, we are never compelled to read rūpa as “body”, much less “matter” in an early Buddhist or Prajñāpāramitā context.17 Reading rūpa as “appearance” allows us to step back from the metaphysical commitments entailed by translations such as “form”, “body”, or “matter”.

Once an appearance occurs, Buddhists noted, we immediately have a sense of attraction or repulsion which precedes cognition.18 Vedanāskandha refers to this (instantaneous) positive or negative hedonic quality of experience. Neuroscientists have also noticed this aspect of perception and call it valence (compare the discussion of valence in Feldman Barrett 2017, pp. 72–77). “Valence” does a better job of conveying the positive or negative hedonic quality of experience than the two usual translations—“feelings” or “sensations”—both of which are vague and loaded with inappropriate connotations.

Only after reacting to the valence of the appearance do we identify the experience and give it a name. The idea that saṃjñā reflects “perception” and that perception happens only after appearance and valence is incoherent. Conventionally, saṃjñā often refers to names and naming, and this seems to be what it means in relation to the skandhas as well. We can translate it as “recognition”, with the proviso that it refers to recognition of the experience.19 Recognising the experience leads to an opportunity for doing actions that contribute to rebirth (i.e., karma). Buddhists adopted a term from Brahmin ritualism for this, i.e., saṃskāra. A saṃskāra is a Brahmin rite of passage, during which priests conduct a series of ritual actions (karman). Finally, we discriminate (vijñāna) the object behind the experience.

Traditionally, the skandhas are presented as a Procrustean ontology, that is to say, a comprehensive set of categories into which all phenomena may—with some stretching or chopping—be made to fit. This typically involves lumping the entire physical universe into one category: rūpa. The alternative proposed here, following Hamilton, is that the skandhas are the salient elements in the process of having sensory experiences and objectifying them. Here, “salient” specifically means “relevant to Buddhist soteriology”. We might even refer to the skandhas as a process of objectifying experience, with objectification seen as a driver of karma and thus an impediment to liberation from rebirth. If the unenlightened are constantly objectifying experience and reifying abstractions, and this causes them to remain in saṃsāra, this is consistent with the enlightened adopting nominalist positions which criticise objectification and reification for soteriological reasons.

Here we need a brief digression to consider the relationship between experiences generally and what we tend to think of narrowly as “suffering”, i.e., duḥkha (P. dukkha). According to Hamilton (2000, p. 68), in Pāli discourses, “dukkha is not contingent to experience. Rather, one cannot have an experience that is not dukkha”. Furthermore:

Dukkha is not descriptive of the world in which we have our experience: it is not descriptive of everything we perceive out there and then react to. Rather, dukkha is our experience.

(2000, p. 82. Emphasis in the source)

Compare the verse at the end of the Vajirā Sutta (SN 5:10):

For only dukkha is produced, persists, and ceases.

None other than dukkha is produced; none other than dukkha ceases.20

And again in the Kātyāyana Sūtra: “Arising is this duḥkha arising; ceasing is this duḥkha ceasing”.21 Note that it is precisely the arising and ceasing of duḥkha that is accounted for by the nidāna doctrine. Indeed, dependent arising itself is often referred to as “the arising of this whole mass of duḥkha” (Evametassa kevalassa dukkhakkhandhassa samudayo hoti. MN I.262, et passim). Hamilton notes that sometimes kevalassa dukkhakkhandhassa is replaced by lokassa “of the world” (e.g., SN II.73; SN IV.87). And this leads her to the observation: “one’s experience (dukkha), the apparatus of which is one’s khandhas, is one’s world (loka)” (Hamilton 2000, p. 205).

What’s missing from Hamilton’s account is the cessation (nirodha) of sensory experience in meditation and the subsequent state of absence of sensory experience (śūnyatā). For this, we may turn to Anālayo (2015, 2021) and his descriptions of the Buddhist approach to mindfulness of what is absent, especially in relation to the meditation practice described in the Xiǎo kōng jīng «小空經» (MĀ 190), the Chinese counterpart of the Pāli Cūḷasuññata Sutta (MN 121).22

The cessation of sensory experience leaves one in an epistemic and phenomenological limbo, analogous to deep, dreamless sleep. Without information from the senses, we do not experience ourselves as having location, extension, or orientation in space or time. One’s first-person perspective on experience and accompanying internal monologue are also sensory experiences and, as such, they too can cease. When sensory experience ceases, no new memories are formed. Looking back, we recall nothing about absence. Cessation is ineffable, not because it is a mystical state for which no words can be found. Rather, as with the “experience” of deep sleep, there is simply nothing to say about the absence of experience.

The analogy with deep sleep is methodologically important. We all share this experience of going to sleep, waking up, and being unaware of anything in between. So we all have a point of reference for understanding cessation and absence. Another entry point is the common experience of losing track of objects and ideas. All of us know that experiences fade and disappear from awareness as we focus on other things: as the old saying goes, “out of sight, out of mind.”

This state of absence [of sensory experience] is not determined by the presence of any condition. Rather, it is contingent on the absence of all conditions for sensory experience.23 So “absence” (śūnyatā) here refers both to the absence of experiential content and to the absence of conditions for experience to arise. This state, which only exists in the absence of conditions for sensory experience, is traditionally called asaṃskṛta, often translated as “unconditioned” but more accurately it means “lacking a condition”.24 Buddhists agreed that nirvāṇa was such a state, i.e., an asaṃskṛtadharma.25 This strongly suggests that nirvāṇa and śūnyatā are synonyms for the state in which sensory experience is absent.

This, then, outlines how I treat some of the most important categories of Buddhist thought in phenomenological terms. A phenomenological reading avoids making metaphysical claims. There is no doubt that early Buddhists had metaphysical commitments (think of karma and rebirth, for example), but this did not necessarily translate into a grand metaphysical narrative or meta-narrative. Rather, Prajñāpāramitā Buddhists were narrowly focused on processes they considered important to their soteriology. In particular, they drew analogies between the arising and ceasing of sensory experience, the cycle of birth and death, and the mythological cycle in which the universe is repeatedly created and destroyed. The fact that nirvāṇa is analogous to death (and the destruction of the universe) is at the heart of Buddhist soteriology. As is the view that rebirth is not a special form of immortality, but a nightmare from which we need to wake up (bodhi). For those who could not attain nirvāṇa in this lifetime, rebirth did at least offer the potential for a more fortunate life next time around, where “fortunate” meant precisely obtaining instruction in Buddhist doctrines and practice and having the leisure and temperament to put them into practice.

With this long preamble setting the scene, and with phenomena at the forefront of our minds, we can now turn to reading Aṣṭa.

4. A Phenomenological Reading of Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā

The Aṣṭasāhasrikā is largely known in modern times via editions (Mitra 1888; Wogihara 1935) of the Pala Dynasty (eighth to twelfth centuries CE) manuscripts. A very old, partial manuscript of Aṣṭasāhasrikā in Gāndhārī is dated to the late first century (Falk and Karashima 2012, 2013). This suggests that Prajñāpāramitā was written down at roughly the same time as the Pāli Canon.26 That is to say, Prajñāpāramitā also has a previously unnoticed claim to being “early Buddhism”. Comparing the Pala-era texts with the Gāndhārī Aṣṭasāhasrikā and the early Chinese translations shows that the text expanded over time, although the additional passages are elaborations rather than new ideas.

In my analysis, I attribute statements to the characters that populate the text. One should not imply from this that I take the characters to be, or have been, actual people. I am cognizant of the powerful arguments of Drewes (2017, 2023) against the historicity of the Buddha and agree that this extends to all of the characters in early Buddhist texts, on which the characters in the Prajñāpāramitā are based. We should also note that Aṣṭa does not follow a narrative arc. Even within chapters, the text is episodic, suggesting perhaps that it began life as a series of fragmentary memories of, or notes on, conversations between practitioners. This further implies that the written text is younger than the content it records, but remembered less systematically than, say, the Pāli suttas. I will refer to the author or authors of Aṣṭa as Aṣṭa-kāra, in the singular, but we don’t know anything about them.

Aṣṭasāhasrikā begins with a fairly standard Buddhist sutra opening or nidāna, without the elaborate lists of beings who were present at the teaching that characterise later Mahāyāna sutras. After the opening, there is an initial discussion concerning the legitimacy of teachings given by Buddhists other than the Buddha. The Aṣṭa-kāra is anxious about perceptions of legitimacy and authenticity. Even if the parinirvāṇa was not a historical event for a historical figure, Buddhists (including the Aṣṭa-kāra) believed it was and acted on that belief. Aṣṭa asserts that whatever an awakened disciple says is tantamount to buddhavācana because it all derives from the Buddha’s teaching (darśana). This grants the disciple anubhāva.

Anubhāva is a curious term, on which etymology gives no purchase. In the Pāli suttas, it occurs just once in the Accāyika Sutta (AN 3.92), where it is paired with iddhi (Skt ṛddhi). Both anubhāva and iddhi are often interpreted as having supernatural connotations, especially when associated with the figure of the Buddha, who became increasingly magical over time. However, iddhi means something like “idealised qualities” or “factors for success”. For example, the PTS Dictionary (Rhys Davids and Stede 1999, p. 120) notes that the four iddhi of a king are: good looks, long life, good health, and popularity; the iddhi of a hunter is skill in tracking game; while the iddhi of the game is to outwit the hunter.27 Anubhāva seems to refer to the kudos bestowed by possessing such qualities. According to Buddhists, the anubhāva of the Buddha derives from his experience of being the first to attain nirvāṇa.

Having addressed anxiety over legitimacy, we plunge into the world of Prajñāpāramitā.

5. Absence

The term śūnyatā is, rather ironically, absent (śūnya) from Chapter One of Aṣṭa. This absence is notable because most scholars assert that the main topic of the text is precisely śūnyatā, and many take the first chapter as the “core” of the text, and possibly as the original extent of the text, with other chapters being added later.28 We also know that Vajracchedikā does not use this term at all. We should not take this as a downgrading of the concept, however, because the absence of sensory experience is still the topic of discussion, even if the word śūnyatā is not (yet) used for it.

Following the standardised opening and establishing of Elder Subhūti’s authority to speak, the Buddha asks Subhūti to teach the bodhisatvas about Prajñāpāramitā.29 Subhūti replies, through the anubhāva of the Buddha:

The Bhagavan has said, “explain Subhuti, beginning with the bodhisatva-mahāsatvas’ perfection of prajñā, how the bodhisatva-mahāsatvas with perfect prajñā went forth.”

“Bodhisatva” is said, Bhagavan, [but] of which phenomenon is this “bodhisatva” an appellation? I do not observe a phenomenon named “bodhisatva”. Nor do I observe a phenomenon named “perfection of wisdom”. Bhagavan, not knowing, not obtaining, not perceiving a bodhisatva or the phenomenon of a bodhisatva, not finding, not apprehending, not perceiving perfection of wisdom or the phenomenon of perfection of prajñā: what bodhisatva will I instruct in or teach about which perfection of prajñā?30

The paradigmatic reading is that Elder Subhūti is saying that dharmas, bodhisatvas, and prajñāpāramitā don’t exist or that they don’t really exist. The hedge “really” is functioning here as an intensifier. However, it could also be seen as a nod to the Madhyamaka doctrine of two truths, in which something can be “conventionally true” (saṃvṛtisat), but not “true in the final analysis” (paramārthasat). Thus, Elder Subhūti’s statement appears paradoxical if only because a great deal of the Prajñāpāramitā literature is concerned with dharmas and bodhisatvas and, more than anything else, with prajñāpāramitā. To declare that the principal topics of discussion in the text don’t exist would be a perverse way to start. That said, this perverse view not only exists, but it is fairly popular amongst living Buddhists and academics.

In fact, Elder Subhūti never says of anything, “It doesn’t exist”. As we will see in the next passage, he typically says, “I don’t perceive that phenomena” (nāhaṃ taṃ dharmaṃ samanupaśyāmi). Or “I don’t apprehend it” (na… upalabhe), or I do not find it (na… vidye). The three verbs samanu√paś, upa√labh, and √vid are repeatedly used—individually and collectively—to make this point. The verb √vid presents some challenges to the translator and exegete. Experts acknowledge two meanings—“know” and “find”—notionally associated with two different conjugations (C.f. Whitney 1885, p. 159). Conventionally, the phrase na vidyate (or na saṃvidyate) is often taken to colloquially mean “it does not exist”. This seems to follow from the view that if something is “not found”, then it “does not occur”, and if it “does not occur”, then it “does not exist”. This sequence of inferences amounts to the doubtful assumption that if we cannot see X, then X doesn’t exist. In Aṣṭa, vidyate, and the related verb saṃvidyate, are used as a set with upalabhyate “to apprehend” and samanupaśyati “to perceive”, both of which seem unequivocally concerned with phenomena rather than existence. Later, when Śāriputra asks if bodhicitta exists, the question is phrased, kiṃ asti “Does it exist?” or “Is it real?” rather than kiṃ vidyate. For this reason, and contra Conze, I take vidyate and saṃvidyate in the selected passages to reflect some form of awareness or knowledge.

The next passage makes the point that we should teach those who are not frightened by the idea of all sensory experience stopping. Why would anyone be afraid of this? Because approaching the cessation of experience: one’s sense of being located and extended in space ceases; one’s sense of time passing ceases, one’s sense of one’s body ceases, and one’s sense of self ceases. Many people who approach cessation report feeling as though the cessation of experience is tantamount to ceasing to exist, to dying. Since our entire personality and psychology are dependently arisen phenomena, with the cessation of sensory experience, our personality also (temporarily) ceases. Buddhists seem to consider that the cessation of sensory experience is analogous to dying. This is why it might engender fear.

In a phenomenological reading, not perceiving, say, the passing of time does not mean that time does not exist. This kind of metaphysical claim is absent from Prajñāpāramitā. Our experience of time passing is dependent on sensory experience more generally. Ergo, when we withdraw attention from sensory experience, especially experience associated with the passing of time, we no longer experience time passing. Nonetheless, time continues to pass for everyone who is not in a timeless samādhi. In other words, just because my sense of space and time ceases does not mean that space or time don’t exist. Just because I do not apprehend dharmas does not mean that dharmas don’t exist, since mere negligence can cause disapprehension. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.31 The existence or nonexistence of objects is not the topic under discussion, and any conclusions along those lines are adventitious and counterproductive.

6. A Mind Without Mental Activity

From here, Elder Subhūti introduces a new topic: the bodhicitta, “the mind of awakening” as a cittaṃ acittaṃ “mind without mind”. Again, Subhūti dialogues with Elder Śāriputra about this.

“Moreover, Bhagavan, the aspirant practised and developed in perfection of prajñā, should train that way, just as he trains also; he should not ponder the mind of awakening. What is the reason for that? Because that mind [of awakening] is without mind. The nature of mind is clear.”

Then indeed, Elder Śāriputra, said this to Elder Subhūti: “Still, Elder Subhūti, does that mind which is without mind, exist?”

That said, Elder Subhūti said this to Elder Śāriputra, “With respect to being without mind (acittatā), can the existence or non-existence [of it] be known or apprehended?”

Śāriputra said, “It cannot, Elder Subhūti.”

Subhūti said, “Elder Śāriputra, given that existence or non-existence are not found or obtained in the state of being without mind, is it appropriate to ask the question, ‘Does that mind which is without mind, exist?’”

When that was said, Elder Śāriputra said this to Elder Subhūti, “So what is this state of being without mind, Elder Subhūti?”

Subhūti said, “Śāriputra, the state of being without mind is immutable and without (false) discrimination [of objects].”32

The familiar term bodhicitta comes to refer to the compassion of a bodhisatva. Here, however, it means “a thought or mind associated with bodhi”, i.e., the state of mind at the moment of awakening. The bodhicitta is said to be a citta “mind” that is acitta “without mind”. Is this not a paradox? Conze (1973, p. 84) certainly translates this entire passage as though it is a paradox. In a phenomenological reading, however, we adopt the heuristic of grounding any interpretation in the arising and ceasing of sensory experience.

Perhaps this is a good time to recall that, according to common Buddhist doctrine, sensory experience includes the mind-sense (manas) and the object of the mind-sense, i.e., mental phenomena (dharma). A dharma, in this sense, arises in dependence on the presence of conditions, and the most important condition is attention (manasikāra) paid to the sensorium. The usually unstated contrast is that absence (śūnyatā) is the state that obtains when, through withdrawal of attention (amanasikāra) or nonapprehension (anupalambha), we undergo cessation and dwell in the absence of sensory experience. There is strong continuity with Pāli suttas that recommend abandoning sensory experience, e.g., the Pahāna Sutta SN 35.24.

It follows from this that bodhicitta is a synonym for the mind in which all sensory experience has ceased. This is why bodhicitta is acitta “without mind/without thought”. That is to say, the text is not trying to confuse us with a paradox or a contradiction here. In a phenomenological reading, the statements above are difficult to parse, especially out of context, but they are not paradoxical.

It is Elder Śāriputra who asks the (metaphysical) question: Does bodhicitta, that cittamacittaṃ, exist? (kiṃ punar āyuṣman subhūte asti tac cittaṃ yac cittamacittam?). Here, the verb is asti “to be” rather than vidyate. Elder Subhūti’s answer is all-important. He does not take the bait. He refuses to discuss the issue on Śāriputra’s terms. Rather, Subhūti answers, “With respect to a state without mental activity, can [the] existence or non-existence [of it] be found or apprehended?” (tatra acittatāyām astitā vā nāstitā vā vidyate vā upalabhyate vā?). Here again, astitā “existence” is contrasted with vidyate “finding” and upalabhyate “apprehending”. Elder Śāriputra answers emphatically, “certainly not” (na hy etad). Elder Subhūti then asks rhetorically if Elder Śāriputra’s question has any relevance (yukta).

Elder Śāriputra, apparently not a man to stand his ground, doesn’t answer the last question, but tacitly concedes the point and changes the subject: “So, what is this [state of] lack of mind?” (kā punar eṣā āyuṣman subhūte acittatā?). Subhūti answers that lack of mind is “immutable” (avikāra) and “non-discriminatory” (avikalpā). This raises the question: How can a Buddhist claim that anything is immutable, given that Buddhist doctrine holds that all phenomena are changeable?

It is generally speaking true that all mental phenomena arise in dependence on the presence of the condition of attention. However, there is no condition that must be present for the state of emptiness to occur. Indeed, the abstraction “absence” (śūnyatā) applies if and only if all the conditions for the arising of sensory experience are concretely absent (śūnya). As noted already, nirvāṇa is an asaṃskṛtadharma precisely because it depends on the absence of all conditions and cannot occur in the presence of any condition. Nirvāṇa, then, is the absence of arising and ceasing. Therefore, nirvāṇa itself does not arise or cease in the usual way, and this is why the text says that nirvāṇa is “immutable”.

7. Existence and Non-Existence Don’t Apply

This passage is followed by a long, effusive session of Elder Śāriputra praising what Elder Subhūti said. Subhūti responds with a long homily that is thick with ideas. He begins by repeating that he does not know, cannot perceive, and does not apprehend anything designated as “bodhisatva” or “prajñā”. It is here that we begin to get a sense of how poor Conze’s translation is.

“It would surely be regrettable if I, unable to find the thing itself, should merely in words cause a Bodhisattva to arise and to pass away. Moreover, what is thus designated is not continuous nor not-continuous, not discontinuous or not-discontinuous. And why? Because it does not exist”.33

(Conze 1973, p. 85)

It is the last phrase of Conze’s translation—“Because it does not exist” (avidyamānatvena tasya nāmadheyasya)—that strikes us with force here. It is true to say that if something doesn’t exist, then we cannot know it, perceive it, or apprehend it. However, the fact that we cannot perceive something does not mean that it doesn’t exist. As argued above, the participle vidyamāna doesn’t mean “it exists” here. I read avidyamānatvena tasya nāmadheyasya as saying: “by lacking awareness of that which is named”.

We may also wonder what “the thing itself” refers to. Here, Conze appears to reference Kant’s ding an sich, i.e., “the thing in itself” or “the noumenon”. The Aṣṭa-kāra would likely have agreed that noumena are never found in sensory experience, precisely because phenomena are sensory experiences. I doubt the Aṣṭa-kāra would have agreed that this means the thing doesn’t exist. After all, we’ve only just established that the existence/nonexistence dichotomy is irrelevant (ayukta).

Elder Subhūti then segues into a kind of “tetralemma” when he says: “that which is named is not sthita or asthita, nor is it viṣṭhita or aviṣṭhita.”34 What is meant by sthita/visthita in this context? Conze translates sthita as “continuous” and viṣṭhita as “discontinuous”, but I doubt that these are good translations since I cannot tell you what being continuous or discontinuous has to do with the topic under discussion; indeed, I’m confident that they have nothing to do with the topic. Sthita typically means “standing; being; remaining, existing” while viṣṭhita means “standing apart; paused, ceased”. The pair sthita/asthita seem to refer generally to existence and non-existence, while the pair viṣṭhita/aviṣṭhita is ambiguous. Viṣṭhita can be read in three ways: (1) as a more emphatic version of sthita, reflecting not mere existence but something more like “established, fixed”—for example, the word is used in Pāli to denote the establishment of viññāna in a foetus at conception; (2) as meaning “existing separately”, perhaps in this context suggesting “apart from conditions”; and (3) as meaning more or less the same as asthita, i.e., “ceased”. In other words, this tetralemma could be interpreted as a nominalist critique of the two most common informal logical fallacies with respect to abstractions: reification and hypostatization. Whatever these pairs of terms mean, such dualities don’t apply to dharmas.

Here, Elder Subhūti is, unusually, talking about an objective “thing” (vastu) rather than a phenomenon (dharma). I think the Aṣṭa-kāra, like the early Buddhists, takes dependent arising to apply only to phenomena, and here they use a different vocabulary to mark the fact that they are not talking about experience. Subhūti appears to argue that just saying, for example, the word “elephant” cannot make a real elephant come into being. The reality of elephants is not in question here; rather, it is assumed. The reality of thoughts (and their verbal expression) is the target topic. This mirrors Harrison’s (2006) nominalist reading of Vajracchedikā.

Later in Chapter One, we find another approach to this that echoes the Kātyāyana Sūtra (Tripāṭhī 1962, pp. 167–70). Discussing how a bodhisatva should practice, Elder Subhūti begins to argue that the bodhisatva doesn’t practice with respect to specific dharmas. Śāriputra asks what dharmas a bodhisatva does practice with. At this point, the Bhagavan intervenes, saying:

When training, the bodhisatva mahāsatva does not train in any dharma. And why not? Because, Śāriputra, they don’t perceive dharmas in the way that the foolish, uneducated hoi polloi grasp at them.35

Śāriputra follows up with the obvious question, “In that case, how do they perceive them?” (kathaṃ tarhi te bhagavan saṃvidyante?), where “they” must be “the bodhisatvas”. The Bhagavan answers:

They perceive just as if they are not perceiving, i.e., unknowingly. Therefore, they speak of “nescience” (avidyā). Those unlearned, foolish common folk are obstinate in inferring all the dharmas that are not perceived by them. Having inferred those [dharmas], they commit to an ontological duality (dvayor antayoḥ), without knowing or seeing those dharmas. Therefore, they infer all dharmas unknowingly (asaṃvidyamāna).36

Here saṃvidyate straightforwardly means “to know, to perceive, recognise; to fully or completely know, etc”, and does not seem to share the ambivalent metaphysics of vidyate. However, Conze (1973, p. 87) has translated both saṃvidyante and avidyamāna as “exist”. This is an example of how Conze’s commitment to repudiating the principle of non-contradiction leads to an incoherent reading. How, for example, does one “construct” that which does not exist?

Coming back to the main sequence of ideas in Aṣṭasāhasrikā, Subhūti is still speaking:

Moreover, Bhagavan, in the perfection of prajñā, the perfection of prajñā practised and developed by the aspirant should not be founded on appearance, valence, recognition, intentions, or discrimination. And why is that?

If he stands on appearance, he practices with respect to the performance of appearances (rūpābhisaṃskāre), and does not practice with respect to the perfection of prajñā; so also for valence, recognition, and intentions. If he persists in discrimination, he practices with respect to the idea of discrimination, and does not practice with respect to the perfection of prajñā.37

Here, “should not be founded on” translates na sthātavyaṃ. It is not that Subhūti is denying the existence of the skandhas. It helps, here, to recall Hamilton’s (2000) description of the skandhas as the “apparatus of sensory experience” and to treat Subhūti as voicing the absence of experience. The bodhisatva does not “stand” on the skandhas because they are in the śūnyatā-samādhi, and all sensory experience has stopped for them (at that time). If one is still having sensory appearances, then one is not engaged in the practice of Prajñāpāramitā. Rather, one is engaged in abhisaṃkāra “performance, accomplishment” (Edgerton [1953] 2004, p. 57) concerning the skandhas. Conze renders abhisaṃkāra as “formative influence”, which seems to be an example of the etymological fallacy. Monier-Williams’ (1899) dictionary offers the definition “conception, idea” in a Buddhist context, which certainly fits this passage. Huifeng’s (2017) English translation of Kumārajīva’s Móhē renders this as:

“If they abide in form, that is practising the construction of form; if they abide in sensation, perception, volitions, or cognition, that is practising the construction of cognition.”.

(206)

As the Heart Sutra says, in the absence of sensory experience, there is no appearance, and no valence, recognition, intention, or discrimination.38 After some elaboration, Elder Subhūti adds:

For, in perfect prajñā, appearance is not grasped. So also valence, recognition, and intentions. For, in perfection of wisdom, discrimination is ungrasped. And that which grasps at appearance is not appearance; so also for valence, recognition, and intentions. That which grasps at discrimination is not discrimination. The perfect prajñā is also ungrasped.39

Again, prajñā is the knowledge gained by bringing sensory experience to a stop and dwelling in the absence of it. This is reinforced by the statement:

For this, here, is how the bodhisatva mahāsatva should practice perfect prajñā. And this extensive samādhi of the bodhisatva mahāsatva named “relinquishing all dharmas” is honoured, immeasurable and extraordinary.40

Relinquishing or eliminating all dharmas (sarvadharmāparigṛhīto) is an old theme that can be found, for example, in the Pahāna Sutta (SN 35.24). Again, this seems to be a reference to the cessation of dharmas arising and ceasing, which is the same thing as the absence of dharmas.

8. Conclusions

For reasons of space, I break off at this point. I hope I have demonstrated that a phenomenological reading of Aṣṭasāhasrikā, as I have defined “phenomenological”, is at least possible and plausible. By paying close attention to the language used, and by consciously rejecting Conze’s idiosyncratic metaphysics, we can arrive at a self-consistent, coherent, and cogent reading of at least a few portions of Aṣṭasāhasrikā.

The basic proposition here is that the authors of Aṣṭa and Vaj did not intend to confuse or confound our reasoning. Having read these texts for a decade, I now find it very implausible indeed that the authors of Aṣṭa or Vaj believed in Conze’s transcendent, “all is one”, magical reality. I also don’t believe that, amidst an otherwise comprehensible, if episodic, text, the Aṣṭa-kāra inserted a series of paradoxes intended to confuse the reader. Buddhist texts were composed to communicate with the Buddhist community. Stories are preserved over centuries only if people believe that they communicate something of value. Notwithstanding that written communication is a dialogue between author and reader and that readers are not bound to share the author’s point of view even after reading the text, we still have to consider them as attempts to communicate something.

In Attwood (2022), I showed that logic is used throughout the Prajñāpāramitā literature—as it is in the early Buddhist literature—in a common-sense way (i.e., more or less correctly but without rigorous definition). Early Buddhists consistently used logic. Notably, Nāgārjuna himself used logic consistently to make his points. Anti-logic of the type “A is not-A” does not come directly from any Buddhist text; rather, it has been interpolated into the texts based on European mysticism and magical thinking.

We can read the Aṣṭasāhasrikā as a (fragmentary and episodic) record of conversations on the topic of the cessation of sensory experience in meditation. I think we can say that we are never forced to read these passages as concerned with metaphysics. Moreover, the phenomenological reading is superior because it shows that the apparent paradoxes are not real paradoxes in this context. In this phenomenological reading, Aristotle’s laws of logic are left intact. Since no knowledge of any kind is possible if A is not-A, this is a very significant advantage. Moreover, since logic generally applies in Buddhism, even if only in a commonsense form, the phenomenological reading is more consistent with the mainstream of Buddhist philosophy.

Beyond the distinct advantage of making sense, this phenomenological approach allows us to step back from the doubtful metaphysical commitments of Conze’s magical eternalist “Absolute”. This ought to lead scholars to reconsider ideas about Prajñāpāramitā that have been axiomatic in both received traditions and Anglophone scholarship.